"As for our trade relations, 60 percent cover Moscow and St. Petersburg. We have to move forward, to the Russian provinces."
"We have a lot of representatives having business in Russia, there are many companies present in the Russian market. We are always moving forward, we have relationship of friendship and cooperation. But we are also trying to understand how to further improve it. We are working on it," Calenda said on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
Italy seeks to build up economic partnership with Russia — in particular in the leather sector, Carlo Calenda told Sputnik.
"We have 340 projects of investment [into the Russian economy]. The problem is concentration on Moscow and St.Petersburg. We were discussing today about the leather sector. The manufacturing process is very difficult, but you [Russia] have instead the raw material, you are not exporting very much, so this is the perfect partnership we can create, bringing companies that are able to compete and create a value chain, using your raw materials. This is just one example of a project that has been proposed and submitted to the Italian companies," Calenda told Sputnik on the sidelines of the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
Italy has so far proposed some 340 projects of investment into the Russian economy, according to the minister.
"We will work until the end of the year in order to better qualify these [investment] projects. In 2017, we will be focused on bringing companies in the various sectors and various Russian regions. The objective is to increase the number of our medium-size enterprises here, but especially to go deeper to Russia," Calenda told Sputnik on the sidelines of the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
